Warrant links Aaron Hernandez to Boston shooting

FILE - In this Oct. 21, 2013 file photo, former New England Patriot football player Aaron Hernandez looks to one of his attorneys, James Sultan, during a hearing in Bristol Superior Court in Fall River, Mass. Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Odin Lloyd, whose body was found June 17 near Hernandez's home in North Attleborough, Mass. A search warrant filed in Connecticut in December 2013 shows police believe Hernandez was in an SUV when someone inside shot two people to death in Boston in 2012. In searching a home of Hernandez's uncle in Bristol, Conn., in June, police found the SUV wanted in the 2012 shooting in Boston. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, Pool, File)

The police said they believe former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez was in an SUV when someone inside shot two people to death in Boston in 2012, according to a search warrant filed in Connecticut.

The warrant does not indicate who investigators believe pulled the trigger or suggest a motive in the shooting of Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu and Safiro Teixeira Furtado in Boston’s South End. No charges have been filed in the case. An attorney for Hernandez did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment yesterday.

Hernandez came under scrutiny in the shooting following his arrest in the slaying of Odin Lloyd, a semi-professional football player whose body was found June 17 near Hernandez’s North Attleborough, Mass., home. Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to murder in that case.

In searching a home of Hernandez’s uncle in Bristol, Conn., in June, the police found the SUV wanted in the 2012 shooting in Boston.

The new search warrant, first reported by the Hartford Courant, was filed in Bristol Superior Court and dated Dec. 11. It sought recordings of phone calls made by a Hernandez associate, Alexander Bradley, while Bradley was jailed in Hartford in October for failing to appear before a Massachusetts grand jury investigating the 2012 shooting.

Bradley has alleged in a pending lawsuit in Florida that Hernandez shot him in the face after they argued outside a Miami club in February 2013.

The search warrant filed by the Bristol police provides some of the first details of Hernandez’s alleged link to the Boston shooting.

Surveillance camera recordings showed Hernandez and Bradley going into the Boston nightclub Cure about 12:30 a.m. on July 16, 2012, shortly after the shooting victims went into the club, according to the warrant.

Hernandez’s movements inside the club weren’t recorded, but the police said Hernandez quickly downed two drinks and that he and Bradley left after about 10 minutes. Surveillance video then showed Hernandez driving a Toyota 4Runner SUV out of a nearby parking garage with Bradley as a passenger, the police said.

The footage shows the victims leaving the club about 2:10 a.m., and Hernandez’s SUV passing by them twice as they walked to a parking garage to get their car, the warrant says. The shooting wasn’t recorded by any cameras.

A third man who was shot in the car but survived, Aquilino Freire, told the police an SUV pulled up next to them while they were stopped at a traffic light, and he saw someone in the SUV’s backseat laughing, the warrant says. Then, several gunshots were fired from the rear passenger seat into the car, Freire told the police. Two other people in the car ran away, Freire said.